


Being Cassandra

by panopticConartist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Auror Harry Potter, Crime Solving, Gen, Guilt, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, It's Not Paranoia If They're Really Out To Get You, M/M, No Horcruxes, Paranoia, Politician Tom Riddle, Politics, Post-Hogwarts, Relationship Status: It's Complicated, The Chamber Of Secrets, Timeline Mashup, a serious attempt was made to make this a healthy relationship but i'm not a miracle worker, does it count as crime solving if it's mostly just a backdrop for relationship development?, dumbledore-induced trauma, i'm aromantic so i left some wiggle room for an aromantic interpretation, moral crisis, shared childhood trauma, the 50s
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-05
Updated: 2020-12-10
Packaged: 2021-03-09 00:15:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 19,544
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27405637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panopticConartist/pseuds/panopticConartist
Summary: “All I’m saying is, you haven’t spoken to the guy in over three years. Tom Riddle is just some Ministry paper-pusher. Why would he bother to mess with your work schedule?”In which Harry knows for a fact that Tom Riddle is up to something. If only anyone would believe him.
Relationships: Harry Potter & Tom Riddle, Harry Potter/Tom Riddle, Hermione Granger & Harry Potter & Ron Weasley, Sirius Black & Harry Potter
Comments: 95
Kudos: 494





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I gave this story the placeholder name “Being Cassandra” while I wrote it as a kind of reference to [The_Carnivorous_Muffin's](https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Carnivorous_Muffin/pseuds/The_Carnivorous_Muffin) fic [Lily and the Art of Being Sisyphus](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1105731), which I adore. Despite the two fics having almost nothing in common, I ended up loving the name and being unwilling to change it, so here we are lol
> 
> Without further adieu, let’s get this show on the road!

It was Riddle’s fault.

It was always Riddle’s fault.

Harry stood up and informed his auror trainee partner that he’d be making another patrol. His partner, used to his restlessness by now, merely waved her hand in acknowledgment without looking up from the Prophet’s daily crossword.

Harry set off at a brisk pace, shining a _lumos_ into the various nooks and crannies of the Ministry’s main floor. The area was quiet and empty in a way that had almost stopped spooking him out, but even two months of night shifts weren’t enough to make him completely comfortable in the normally bustling Ministry foyer. Something about the quiet made Harry’s instincts prickle, and the tiny voice in his head that sounded like his auror supervisor shouted at him about constant vigilance. Harry winced at the thought, his still-healing bruises from the previous training day making themselves known.

Still, it was the middle of the night, and very few Ministry employees worked during these hours. Mostly, it was just a few stressed interns, the occasional official with an imminent deadline, a handful of vampires from the accounting department, and Tom Fucking Riddle.

Riddle could be found at the Ministry at almost any hour of the day, Harry knew. He would wonder if the man’s friends were concerned about his sleeping habits (or lack thereof) if Riddle actually had friends instead of sycophants.

Harry scowled. It was that bastard’s fault that he always got stuck with this assignment anyway.

As one of the newest trainees, it was normal for him to get the worst shifts in these grunt work assignments, with the more experienced trainees taking most of the day shifts. It _wasn’t_ normal to get night shifts at the Ministry every day for months on end. Most trainees at least switched between the Ministry, St. Mungos, and Diagon Alley. Hell, even new trainees still tended to get a mix of day and night shifts.

Not Harry though. No, Harry was stuck wandering the empty atrium almost every night.

It was just too big of a coincidence. Somebody had to be pulling some strings, and Harry had a pretty good guess as to who it could be.

He turned a corner and immediately narrowed his eyes. Speak of the devil. Riddle was walking alongside an intern on the other side of the hallway. They were chatting about Puddlemere United’s latest Quidditch match, and Riddle was smiling that slimy, fake smile of his, which no one but Harry ever seemed to catch onto.

Harry clenched his fist and kept walking resolutely forward. He was an adult. He was going to be an _auror_. He could walk past his childhood rival without making a scene.

As he passed the pair, however, he couldn’t stop himself from glancing sideways at Riddle. Their eyes met, and the bastard had the gall to smile pleasantly at him and nod in greeting.

Prick.

* * *

It stayed like that for several long months. Harry worked night shifts in between brutal training sessions with Moody, Riddle was around often enough that Harry saw him at least twice a week, and Harry tried and failed to convince his friends that Riddle was out to get him.

“It’s not that I don’t believe you, mate,” said Ron, who definitely didn’t believe him, “but you have to admit you have a bad track record where Riddle is concerned.” They were sitting at a table in the Leaky Cauldron, grabbing a meal after Ron’s shift at his brothers’ joke shop and before Harry’s shift at the Ministry.

Harry took a breath to respond, but Ron started counting on his fingers.

“There was the potions accident in second year.”

“He doesn’t even like cats,” Harry muttered mutinously. “How did kneazle fur just happen to fall into our potion while he reached over it?”

Kneazle fur, as he had learned the hard way, reacted horribly with the Draught of Hawk’s Sight that he and Neville had been working together to brew. The resulting fumes had forced the entire class to evacuate the room, and Slughorn had assigned Harry and Neville to clean cauldrons for a week.

“Then there was the _petrificus totalus_ fiasco in fifth year.”

“Why was he sneaking around at night!?”

They had happened upon each other on the second floor and instinctively shot the same spell at each other, freezing both of them until a very startled first year found them in the morning and fetched a professor to undo the spells. Riddle had pulled his charming smile routine and claimed he had been doing his rounds as a prefect, so only Harry had received a detention. No one listened to him when he told them that Riddle’s patrol route didn’t normally take him to the second floor at that time of night.

“The Chamber of Secrets? You thought he was a _murderer_.”

It always came back to that, didn’t it?

“Well I don’t anymore,” Harry managed to say after a too-long pause. The words tasted like ash in his mouth.

Ron grimaced. “Sorry mate, I know you don’t like talking about it. It’s just, I’m all for blaming things on Slytherins, but Riddle actually seems like a decent guy. He never even went out of his way to get you in trouble in school even though you singled him out constantly. All I’m saying is, you haven’t spoken to the guy in over three years. Tom Riddle is just some Ministry paper-pusher. Why would he bother to mess with your work schedule?”

Harry pushed his food around his plate instead of answering. He knew with certainty that Riddle was, in fact, exactly the kind of monster Harry always insisted he was, but Ron had a point. It made no sense for him to be manipulating Harry’s schedule. He was a bastard, but surely he had better things to do with his time.

Ron sighed in fond exasperation at Harry’s expression. Honestly. Something about Riddle always managed to turn his best friend back into a moody sixteen-year-old.

* * *

Harry rushed down the hall, heedless of who he barreled past. “Sorry, ‘scuse me, incoming! Sorry ma’am! In a bit of a rush, excuse me,” he said without really looking. Finally, he made it to the lifts and hopped into one just as the doors were closing.

The lift was blessedly empty, save for one middle-aged witch. Harry’s stomach dropped, however, when he saw who that witch was.

Wilhemina Tuft. The new Minister for Magic.

She grinned at him as he caught his breath. “Level two for the DMLE, right?” she asked, glancing at his auror robes. _Full_ auror robes, it should be noted. As of a few months ago, his days as a trainee were over.

Harry shook his head. “Level four, please,” he requested, and she pressed the button for him, prompting the lift to begin its descent. His heart was still pounding from his sprint and the shock of encountering Tuft. “Thank you, Minister,” he said, belatedly.

She looked amused at his attempt at politeness. Harry focused on getting his breathing under control, and they lapsed into silence. Until-

With a jolt, the lift stopped.

The doors didn’t open.

After sharing a concerned glance with his fellow occupant, Harry drew his wand and cast a spell to force the doors open. They slid apart with little resistance, but the two magicals were greeted by the sight of a blank brick wall.

The lift had stopped between floors.

Harry began the incantation for a spell that would slowly raise the lift until they reached the previous floor, but the Minister stopped him.

“I wouldn’t bother. One of the protections we enacted when Grindelwald rose to power was to guard the lifts against tampering. We’re stuck until someone realizes something is wrong and accesses the control panel to let us out,” she told him as she sat down on the floor.

Harry stared at her in dismay while he processed that. “Hermione is going to kill me,” he groaned as he, too, slid to the floor.

“Hermione Granger?” Tuft asked curiously. “From the Department of Magical Creatures?”

Harry buried his head in his hands. “Yeah. I’m supposed to help her negotiate with the Hogwarts centaur herd today.”

“Ah, right. The old divination professor is retiring. I’d heard Ms. Granger has been trying to convince a member of the herd to take up the position. Why does she need an auror to negotiate with them? My understanding was that they disliked aurors.”

Harry paid close attention to her tone, but if Tuft harbored any anti-creature beliefs herself, she was hiding them well. Well, good. She was the first halfblood to ever become Minister for Magic; he’d hate for her to be a different sort of bigot. “I saved one of their foals from drowning during my fourth year. She slipped on the rocks and broke her leg, so the current was dragging her under. They gave me the right to roam freely on their land, and they’re more willing to talk to Ministry officials if I’m there.”

“High praise from centaurs,” Tuft commented with faintly raised brows. “Certainly enough to earn my respect, Auror…”

“Potter,” he finished for her. “Harry Potter, Minister.”

Her face lit up in recognition, and Harry braced himself. “From the Selwyn investigation! I read your report. I thought it was a stroke of genius to ask the house elf what she had seen.”

Harry relaxed. If she was familiar with his name in any other context, she didn’t show it. “I’m sure one of the others would have thought of it eventually,” Harry hedged with an embarrassed smile.

They allowed the conversation to die down shortly afterward, both of them turning to their thoughts to pass the time. After a few minutes, something occurred to Harry, and he suddenly sat bolt upright.

“I’ve got an idea,” he said before drawing his wand once again. “ _Expecto patronum_.”

A silver stag burst from his wand, filling the lift with soft white light. It tossed its head and pawed at the ground as if to say, ‘What? Where’s the danger?’

“Find Hermione,” he told it. “Tell her the Minister and I are stuck in one of the lifts and we’d appreciate a rescue.”

The stag inclined its head before turning and vanishing through the wall.

“A fully corporeal patronus,” Tuft said after a moment, looking a little startled. “Not many people can manage that. I certainly never got the hang of it.”

Harry leaned back against the wall again. “Oh don’t worry,” he said with a snort, “it took me nearly a year to master it. Took me ages to get anything even resembling an animal.”

Tuft nodded with sympathy borne from many fruitless hours spent struggling with a difficult spell. “I don’t suppose you have any tips for casting it? All I get is mist.”

Harry thought for a few moments. “The books tell you to think of a strong, happy memory. They’re right, but I’ve always felt like that missed the point a little. It has to be something you want to keep safe. The patronus charm is protective magic at its core, so you have to feel so strongly about the memory that you’d face off against a dementor over it. A memory that you’re unwilling to let it take from you.”

Tuft looked thoughtful. “So something like the memory of being elected Minister wouldn’t work because I’m not protective enough of it.”

Harry nodded. “Exactly. I tried thinking of the first quidditch match I ever won, but that just gave me mist, as well.” And wasn’t it interesting that Tuft wasn’t the sort of woman who jealously guarded her achievements, despite how hard he knew she had worked for them? His respect for her quietly went up by a few notches. He surprised even himself by adding, “I usually use the memory of when my godfather got custody of me.”

It wasn’t something he liked to talk about. The media circus surrounding the custody hearings meant that the details of his home life had been plastered across the front page for weeks, and he'd been the subject of pity and scorn in equal measure. He wasn't sure why he felt the need to push his luck by bringing it up, but Tuft didn't press him about it.

Her eyebrows furrowed intently in thought. After a moment, she withdrew her wand and stated firmly, “ _Expecto patronum_.”

A silver bird emerged from her wand, small but glowing as brightly as any patronus Harry had seen. It was a little misty around the edges, but it was undeniably a corporeal patronus. No doubt, with practice, it would be a formidable guardian. Tuft stared at it in awe as it fluttered around the small space before perching on her outstretched fingers. “A robin,” she said with a surprised smile. “Hello there.”

The robin ruffled its wings in greeting.

“I lost my son in Diagon Alley one day,” she said without looking away. “It was during the war, so I assumed the worst. When I finally found him, it was like the whole world righted itself.” She laughed. “He was _so_ grounded.”

Harry smiled. Wilhelmina Tuft would be a good Minister, he thought, if that memory was strong enough to produce a patronus for her. Or maybe he just had a soft spot for mothers who so clearly cared for their children.

“And you can send messages this way?” she asked Harry.

“That’s the easy part,” he replied. “There isn’t even a spell involved. You just ask it to deliver the message for you.”

She looked back at the glowing little bird. “Will you please thank Auror Potter for me?”

The robin bobbed its head before taking flight, winging its way across the space and landing on Harry’s knee. Tuft’s voice rang out from its tiny form. “Thank you, Auror Potter,” it said, and then it faded into mist and dispersed.

Tuft seemed giddy, and Harry took a moment to wonder if she was a Ravenclaw in school. “Just wait until I tell my Undersecretary about this,” she said. “He’ll be so jealous. He has a hobby of collecting all sorts of uncommon spells.”

Harry nodded politely, and she seemed to inspect him closer.

“You know, you might actually know him. You two look to be around the same age; you probably went to Hogwarts together.”

“Oh?” Harry asked. He’d kept up with a lot of his yearmates, but he couldn’t think of anyone who was anywhere near as high ranking as an Undersecretary for the Minister. No one except-

“Yes, I’m quite sure you would have at least known of him. He was Head Boy, I believe. His name is-”

The lift suddenly came to life and resumed moving downward. They only had to wait a moment before they came to the next level, where a figure was waiting for them.

“Finally,” Tom Riddle said with relief. “We’ve been trying to get you out for ages!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This fic is a labor of love that I’ve been writing off and on for over a year. It’s also my first multi-chaptered, plotted fic since 2013. All that is to say, if you could leave kudos and comments to tell me what you think, it would make my day! Being Cassandra holds a very special place in my heart, and I’m excited to finally get to share it with you! I think you’re really going to like it.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for your feedback on the first chapter! I've been practically vibrating with excitement all week to share the next chapter with you all :D
> 
> We get to see a little more of Tom in this chapter! Harry is trying his best to avoid him at the moment, but he won’t be very successful after this :)

Harry and Hermione walked down a well-trodden path in the Forbidden Forest, using the trek back to the castle as an opportunity to talk. The negotiations with the centaurs, although delayed by half an hour, had gone better than expected. A member of the herd, Filone, had agreed to take over the Divination position after the current professor retired at the end of the year. Their classes would take place at night, similar to Astronomy classes, and Filone themself would set up a suitable outdoor classroom near the lake.

Harry, however, wasn’t focused on the centaurs.

“I’m telling you, Hermione, Riddle was the one who broke the lift in the first place!”

Hermione rolled her eyes good-naturedly. “I know you like to blame Riddle for all the evils of the world, but why would he trap you in a lift with his boss only to let you out twenty minutes later?”

“I don’t know!” Harry exclaimed, gesturing emphatically. “Maybe he caught wind of the centaur negotiations today and wanted to sabotage them.” It would be just like Riddle to be secretly anti-creature.

“He’s worked closely with my department on a few pro-creature bills,” Hermione pointed out.

“But how else could he have known we were trapped, if he didn’t make it happen? You said he was already working on freeing us before you got there. There’s no way someone could have noticed anything was wrong that quickly!”

“He’s the Undersecretary to the Minister,” Hermione said slowly, as if she were explaining it to a first year. “Of course he would be one of the first people to notice she was missing.”

“That’s another thing! When did he become Undersecretary? I feel like in a few months I’m going to blink and he’ll be Minister!”

“You’re being dramatic, you just haven’t seen him as often now that you’re not stuck with Ministry guard duty. He’s only been the Undersecretary for a few weeks. Minister Tuft promoted him when she was elected.”

It was true; once Harry had graduated to full auror work, he had lost track of Riddle. But still, the man had risen through the ranks of the Ministry at a meteoric rate only rivaled by Hermione. Was no one capable of seeing how ruthless and cruel he was?

Or maybe they could see it, and he fit right in.

Politics, Harry thought with a shudder.

“It still doesn’t make sense,” he said mulishly. “It’s just too big of a coincidence.”

“Yes, yes,” Hermione replied with the amused detachment of someone who has heard the same argument a dozen times. “He’s the worst person alive and he’s committed to making your life difficult. Did you see the way Ianyse looked at you? I thought she was going to faint. She’s got the cutest crush on you.”

This time, it was Harry’s turn to roll his eyes good-naturedly, allowing the change in topic. “You save a kid from drowning _one time_ and they get all hero-worshippy. What can you do?”

It was at this point that they stepped out of the forest and caught sight of the castle at last. “Oh, hey, do you mind if we go see how Hagrid’s doing while we’re here?” Harry asked.

With Hermione’s enthusiastic agreement, they started walking in the direction of the groundskeeper’s hut. They found Hagrid out by the chickens, scattering feed in the pen for them.

“Harry! Hermione!” he exclaimed. “I was hoping you’d stop by!” Hagrid set about scattering the rest of the feed so he could come talk to them, and Harry took the opportunity to inspect him.

If Hagrid had been tall as a fourth year, at age nineteen he was… well, giant. In school, he had moved like an elephant surrounded by mice, nervous and unsure of his own strength. Harry recalled several occasions where he had knocked down suits of armor while dodging out of another student’s way. Now, it looked like he’d finally grown into his half-giant ancestry, and he seemed to have a new awareness of himself within his surroundings.

He seemed… settled, and a quietly troubled part of Harry relaxed ever so slightly.

“It’s good to see you, Hagrid,” Hermione told him honestly. “You heard we were visiting the centaurs today?”

“Heard about it? It’s all that anybody in the forest has been talking about!” Hagrid finished with the chickens and stepped easily over the fence of their enclosure. He reached Hermione first and gave her a tight hug. In a conspiratorial whisper, he added, “I had five galleons that said Ianyse would faint when she saw Harry.”

“Sorry to disappoint,” Harry said with a grin.

“Ah c’mere you, you know you could never disappoint,” Hagrid replied, wrapping Harry up in another bone-crushing hug and unknowingly causing a flare of guilt in his gut. “But if you want to make it up to me, you could compliment her hair next time,” he added with a wink. “Never hurts to have a few extra galleons laying around.”

“I’ll keep it in mind.”

“So you’re…,” Hermione spoke up once they broke apart, sounding uncharacteristically hesitant, “you’re doing alright here, Hagrid?”

Hagrid smiled fondly. “Now, don’t you tell me you’re worried about me?”

“Of course we worry about you!” Hermione exclaimed. Whatever hesitance she had was lost in the wind. “After what happened-”

“It’s alright, Hermione,” Hagrid interrupted. “I can’t say I like the way things happened, but they weren’t wrong to expel me. I knew Aragog was dangerous when I got him. Besides, we both know I was rubbish at magic.”

If anything, the fire in her eyes only blazed harder. “They didn’t even give you a trial! Maybe Aragog did… kill Myrtle, but you weren’t the one pretending to be the Heir of Slytherin! If Dumbledore hadn’t stepped in, they would have sent you to Az-”

“Hermione,” Harry stopped her. “If Hagrid doesn’t want to talk about it, he doesn’t have to. Everyone important knows it wasn’t him.”

Hermione whirled around to face him. “How can you act so calm about it!? All of magical Britain thinks he’s some kind of… muggleborn-hating zealot!”

“Because no one ever actually believed he was the one pretending to be the Heir,” Harry replied tiredly. “Everyone knows it was probably just some pureblood kid using a petrification potion to scare people, and the school board used Hagrid and Aragog as a chance to sweep it under the rug. They would have pinned it on any non-pureblood they could get their hands on.” The words were easy to say. Harry thought them to himself often enough. “The system is broken, ‘Mione. That’s why we’re working so hard to fix it.”

Hagrid put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s alright, Hermione,” he repeated. “It’s not the life I pictured, but it’s mine and I like it.” He seemed to cast about for a change of topic, and announced after a moment, “You know, I think there’s someone you should meet!”

Hagrid gave a piercing whistle, and a shape darted out from behind the hut, skidding clumsily as it turned the corner. The shape bounded towards them, and it quickly became clear that it was actually a massive puppy.

“This here’s Fang,” he announced proudly as it ran.

Fang was exactly like all puppies that would one day grow much bigger. He had long, gangly limbs, floppy ears, and paws that he would surely grow into one day. And he had absolutely no idea how big he was. He ran at top speed towards Hagrid and, without making any attempt to slow down, leapt directly into Hagrid’s arms.

That was the other thing Harry noticed about Fang: as clear as it was that the puppy was nowhere near done growing, it was also clear that he was the biggest dog Harry had ever seen.

Hagrid went down in a flurry of flailing limbs, and soon all three of them were laughing and playing keep-away with Fang using a ball that Hagrid found in one of his many pockets. They ended up inviting Hagrid to come with them for a round of celebratory butterbeers at the Three Broomsticks, and the three of them spent another hour catching up. Eventually, Ron arrived with Fred and George in tow and turned their little celebration into a real party.

Harry went to bed that night feeling like the weight on his shoulders had lessened, just a bit.

* * *

The Auror Captain was waiting for him when he arrived at work on Friday morning. The man was in conversation with a robed wizard who Harry recognized with distaste as Cygnus Black, but he paused to catch Harry as he walked past them.

“Auror Potter, a word,” he requested.

“Captain Peterson,” Harry greeted warily as he approached the pair. He ignored the other man for the time being, more focused on what his boss could possibly want with him so early in the morning. “What can I do for you, sir?”

“Care to explain why the Minister has personally requested that you guard her office for the next month, effective immediately?”

Oh thank Merlin, at least he wasn’t being fired, he thought. Then his brain caught up with what Peterson had actually said. “Come again?”

Peterson was unimpressed. “Minister Tuft got stuck in a malfunctioning lift yesterday, and there were signs that an unauthorized person entered her office while she was gone. She wants someone stationed there for a while to discourage further intrusions. What I don’t understand,” he said with a hard look, “is what you did to get her attention enough that she would request you specifically.”

Harry was caught flat-footed. Someone had snuck into Tuft’s office? Was it Riddle? Why would Riddle need to sneak into the Minister’s office? Aloud, he said, “Um. I got caught in the lift with her?”

Peterson sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Only you, Potter.”

Harry opened his mouth to ask what that meant, but Peterson spoke again before he could.

“Just head down to the Minister’s floor. The assignment lasts until the 24th. We’ll send you the official assignment papers later today.” He turned to Cygnus. “My apologies, Mr. Black, I really am late for a meeting. If you’ll come to my office around lunch, we can continue our discussion there.”

With that, the man departed. Harry made to leave as well, but Cygnus stopped him before he could. Harry felt his mood plummet.

“I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced. A shame, seeing as you’re Cousin Sirius’… ward.” Harry had to give the man credit: there was only a bit of a sneer buried in his words. “I’m Cygnus Black, of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black.” He notably did not extend his hand to shake.

“We’ve met,” Harry replied curtly. “Several years ago, the day you came to Grimmauld Place to tell Sirius that taking custody of me would tarnish the Black name.”

Cygnus’ eyes narrowed. “Ah, yes, bad business all around. I remember reading about your parents’ deaths, I’m afraid. Such a shame. Of course, with a halfblood like Severus Snape, you never quite know what they’ll do.”

Prick. “I like to attribute it to entitlement and petty grudges rather than blood, if it’s all the same to you. I’ve met plenty of entitled, petty purebloods,” he added, looking Cygnus up and down.

“You’d do well to remember your manners when speaking to your betters,” Cygnus hissed, nostrils flaring. “Just because Sirius forgot what it means to be a part of the Ancient and Most Noble House of Black, does not mean the rest of us have.”

Harry bristled. “Thanks for the tip,” he said with a forced smile, “I’ll keep that in mind if I meet one of my betters anytime soon. Now, I have other places to be. Nice to see you again, Cygnus. We should do this again sometime.”

* * *

Harry arrived in front of the Minister’s office just as the door jerked open. His hand was still raised to knock as he found himself now standing in front of Wilhelmina Tuft, and he quickly dropped it.

“Auror Potter!” she greeted. “Glad I was able to catch you. You’ll be stationed inside my office. I’m afraid I don’t have the time to fully brief you right now, but when Tom comes by, I’m sure he can fill in some gaps. I should be back in two hours or so!”

And then she was gone, leaving Harry standing in the doorway, bewildered.

He took a hesitant step over the threshold and let the door swing closed behind him. The office was rather large, though clearly still in the process of being broken in. Tuft had only been the Minister for a few weeks, so the filing cabinets and neat little organizing trays were only just starting to devolve into the controlled chaos that all filing cabinets and organizers were destined to become.

The desk was well on its way to becoming a full-fledged mess though, he noted. Other than the desk and two guest chairs situated in front of it, there was also a small sitting area with a couch and two armchairs. After another moment of hesitation, he chose to sit in the armchair with the best view of the door.

What felt like an eternity later, Harry was bored out of his skull. This was why he hated guard duty. At least when he was guarding the atrium, he could go on patrols to stretch his legs and appease his restless mind.

He was in the middle of pacing in front of the couch when a paper airplane came soaring into the room through one of the vents. It circled the room twice before swooping down towards him, and he caught it with a seeker’s dexterity before it could crash land into his hair. He unfolded it, revealing it to be his assignment papers, as promised by Peterson.

It was all fairly typical. Report to Wilhelmina Tuft. One month, normal working hours, normal pay. Don’t tell anyone about the details of your assignment, blah blah. Harry skimmed those parts until he got to the briefing on _why_ he was there.

Ah, there it was. Someone had broken in while Tuft was trapped in the lift. Nothing was stolen or damaged, but sensitive documents had clearly been rifled through. It didn’t give any information on what the documents were, which was exactly the level of unhelpful secrecy he expected from the Ministry.

The problem was that somehow, even though the Minister’s office was warded to hell and back, the intruder had managed to get in without tripping a single alarm. The wards were all intact, as well, so whoever it was hadn’t even needed to dismantle them to get in. It looked like the Department of Mysteries was working on fortifying the wards, but they needed someone to stand guard in the meantime.

Thus, Harry.

Another hour passed without fanfare, and he began attempting to transfigure a spare potion vial from his work bag into a dragon figurine. After some thought, he dug around in his bag until he found a marble he’d picked up at some point and used that to add some color to the whole thing. Even with the marble, it was a simple little thing: a white body with bright red eyes and tiny black claws. He was in the middle of shaping the spikes along its back when the door to the office opened. Harry held himself very still.

Tom Riddle scanned the room as he entered, his eyes zeroing in on Harry immediately. He gave a welcoming smile. “Oh, Harry, good that you’re here. I take it that you are the auror who will be stationed here for the month?”

Harry gave him an unimpressed glare as he slipped the figurine into his bag. “Don’t act like you’re not the one behind this, Riddle.”

Riddle had the gall to feign confusion. “I don’t know what you mean. Wilhelmina told me she was going to request an auror guard, but I had no idea who it would be.” He seemed to think for a moment, then, “Well, I suppose I had a hunch. You managed to impress her while you were stuck in the lift together yesterday.”

Harry didn’t quite know how to respond to that. “You mean while you were rifling through her desk,” he accused instead.

“Is that what you think? You’ve got it all wrong; the moment I noticed Wilhelmina was missing, I began looking for her. I’m sure your friend Granger can confirm that she found me already working on the access panel when she arrived.” Shit. That was a good point. He couldn’t have had time to sneak into the Minister’s office, not personally at least. That didn’t mean he wasn’t working with someone. “I’m quite impressed by your casting of the patronus charm, by the way,” Riddle added. “You’ll have to show it to me sometime.”

“Don’t change the subject,” Harry snapped. “I know you’re up to something, Riddle, and I’m going to get to the bottom of it. You’re going to regret getting me involved in your little scheme.”

If anything, Riddle just seemed amused. “And what exactly do you think I’m up to?”

“You’ve always been the purebloods’ little lapdog. Maybe you’re here to sabotage our first halfblood minister,” Harry challenged with a jut of his chin.

At this, Riddle gave a polite little laugh, though his eyes hardened slightly. “Why would I want to further pureblood goals? Surely you of all people remember: _I’m a muggleborn_. Not everyone can have a nice pureblood surname, Potter.”

Harry leveled an unimpressed glare at him. “A muggleborn, sure. Cut the bullshit, you know I’ve always seen through your little act. You didn’t fool me in first year, you didn’t fool me in sixth year, and you’re not fooling me now.”

They stood at an impasse for several tense moments before Riddle sighed. “Yes, you’ve always been oddly resistant to gaslighting. It never hurts to check, though.”

Harry felt at once relieved and wary. It would be wrong to say he trusted any version of Tom Riddle, but this one, the rare one who dropped the pretenses and spoke plainly, was by far the easiest to deal with. Not that he was going to drop his guard. “You make it sound like I’m some kind of case study.”

Riddle smirked. “You said it yourself, didn’t you? That you ‘see through me.’ It just so happens that when you see something, sometimes it sees you as well.”

“That,” Harry started, then paused for a moment, “is the most pretentious thing I’ve heard all month. Is this what you sound like all the time?”

Riddle was saved from answering when Minister Tuft entered the room in a flurry of motion. Her arms were full of rolled up parchments, and Tom and Harry were quick to take some of the load from her before everything ended up on the floor.

“Oh, excellent, you two have already introduced yourselves I take it? Was I right that you knew each other at Hogwarts?”

Riddle spoke before Harry could. “We met on the train before first year.”

“Wonderful! I met my husband on the Hogwarts Express, it really is the kind of thing that draws people together,” Wilhelmina told them confidingly. “You can set those down anywhere on the desk, boys, thank you for the help. Auror Potter, if you’ll open the parchment tied with the grey ribbon, you’ll find your actual assignment details.”

“My what?” Harry asked, picking up the relevant scroll. “And please, Harry is fine,” he added automatically.

“Then as long as we’re in a private setting, please call me Wilhelmina. The orders you received before are mostly just a cover, since we have no way of knowing who broke into my office or how much access they have to other parts of the Ministry,” she explained while sorting through the various scrolls. “Choosing you for this assignment ruffled enough feathers as it is. You _are_ technically a bit underqualified to be working directly with the Minister,” she said, “but you have an excellent track record, and I smoothed things over by claiming to feel safer with an auror whose alibi I can vouch for personally.” She looked up briefly to wink at him. “You know how women are; always fretting over the little things.”

Yes, Harry decided he liked Wilhelmina Tuft. By then, he had untied the ribbon and unfurled the parchment. The majority of it was the same as the last, but his list of duties had changed drastically. “You want me to investigate the break-in?”

She finally looked up fully to address him. “Yes. As discreetly as possible, of course. The documents the intruder was looking through are highly sensitive, but I have a feeling they didn’t find the one they were looking for. Tom can help fill you in.” Here, she shifted her attention to Riddle. “There are too many eyes on me for me to get as involved as I’d like, but you’ll help him, right?”

“Of course, Wilhelmina,” he agreed with a charming smile.

Harry wanted to scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lads finally have a conversation! Not a very pleasant one, to be fair, but some things take a bit of time lol
> 
> I made a concerted effort not to just sweep Hagrid’s fate under the rug, but well... Harry’s clearly got some skeletons in his closet, and it’s not like anyone seemed very concerned about Hagrid being framed for murder in canon. Bless him, if I can't un-fuck his life I can at least make sure he's happy.
> 
> Let me know what you think! Do you have any theories about what went down between Harry and Tom, or are you totally in the dark? Are you excited to see them work together? Leave a comment, I’d love to hear your thoughts.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Coincidences continue to happen coincidentally, a trap (or several) gets ready to spring shut, and Harry gets some much-needed advice.

Harry stepped out of the floo and wasted no time in slapping down a piece of parchment onto the kitchen table. “What in Merlin’s name is Morgana’s Lace?”

Coming home from work that day only to find a notice on his front door was just the icing on the cake of his shitty day. It had taken him the better part of an hour to come to grips with what it would mean for him, and by then he was running late to their weekly Friday night dinner at Ron’s place.

“Nice to see you too, mate,” Ron greeted, making a cheers motion with his bottle of butterbeer. He passed one to Harry a moment later, who gratefully accepted.

“Morgana’s Lace?” Hermione exclaimed, snatching up the parchment and scanning its contents. “Oh Harry, that’s awful! And it’s in the air vents? It’d be easier to just demolish the whole building at that point!”

“It’s a type of mold,” Ron clarified for Harry’s sake. “A nasty one, too. Causes all sorts of magic-resistant lung problems if you spend too much time in contact with it. Your whole building’s got it?”

Harry ran a frustrated hand through his hair. “Yeah. They’re giving everyone a month to find somewhere else to live, but they say the sooner the better. And I _just_ managed to move out of Sirius’ place.”

Hermione made a sympathetic noise. “I’m sure he and Remus would be happy to have you move back in if you needed to.”

“I know,” Harry said with a sigh. “I was just really glad to be on my own. It felt like I was finally an adult, you know?”

Ron stood from the table and moved to start filling up dinner plates for the three of them. “If you need somewhere to crash while you find a new place, you know you’re always welcome to my couch,” he offered.

“I might have to take you up on that. Thanks,” he added as Ron levitated a plate to him. “I just don’t know where to start looking. An auror’s salary isn’t too bad, but it’s not great either.”

Hermione murmured her thanks as she received her plate as well. Ron hummed in response as he sat back at the table with his own plate. As she picked up her fork, she said, “A friend of mine at work mentioned that he just found a good flat for a decent enough price near the ministry. I could give you the name of the place, if you want?”

“That’d be a huge help. Thanks ‘Mione,” Harry said with relief. “I was thinking I’d go try to see a few places tomorrow. I want to get this out of the way as soon as possible.” Moving a bit closer to the Ministry might even be a good thing. He could walk to work some days instead of always apparating.

Maybe this whole housing nonsense would be good for him in the long run.

* * *

As it turned out, Harry was in luck. The place Hermione recommended had a flat that had been vacated just last week, and the owner was more than happy to lease it to a young auror. Since the new flat was already cleaned, and his old one was starting to make him nervous, he made the perhaps impulsive decision to move that very weekend.

And so it was that one extraordinarily (but not unbearably; thank Merlin for magic) busy weekend later, Harry laid on the floor of his new kitchen, trying to make himself feel less like a pile of aching muscles and more like a human being. While he was lost in thought, his hands idly played with the little dragon figurine he’d transfigured in the Minister’s office on Friday.

What little energy he could spare between packing up all his belongings had been spent running through lists of everyone who had access to the Minister’s office and their possible motivations for breaking in. It was a surprisingly frustrating task, and compared to that, the physical labor of moving flats was almost a relief.

Almost.

Some things, like furniture, were quite easy to move if you happened to be a wizard. Couches in particular seemed to love nothing more than to be shrunken to doll size and carried around inside one’s pockets. Cookware, though? Cookware threw an absolute _fit_ if you so much as looked at it with a shrinking charm on your lips. And then there was clothing, which never fit quite right again once it had been shrunk. And featherweight charms, while simple, were fiendishly difficult to cast in succession. Eventually, it was easier to just move the finicky things the muggle way.

His work as an auror kept him fit, luckily, but he cursed his upbringing at Privet Drive for making him reluctant to accept any of the offers of help he had received. So there he was, trying unsuccessfully to persuade himself to get up off the floor after moving all of his possessions into his new flat by himself, when there was a knock on the front door.

Harry briefly contemplated not answering. He envisioned a wonderful world in which he stayed unmoving on the floor until he melted peacefully into it. Then he groaned and reluctantly dragged himself to his feet, taking a moment to set the dragon figurine on the kitchen counter on his way around it. He was undoubtedly a total mess, but he resolved to himself that whoever was at the door was just lucky he was going to answer it at all. They could deal with his disheveled clothes and sweaty hair.

He opened the door with the intent to give a polite greeting, but when he saw the figure in the hall, what actually came out of his mouth was a flat, “What.”

Tom Riddle stood there with a pleasant smile, which faltered slightly when he caught sight of Harry. “Oh,” he said, eyeing Harry up and down with a strange look before seeming to regroup. “Are you the new tenant?”

Harry just stared.

Riddle carried right along. “I came to introduce myself, but I suppose that’s not necessary in this case. What a coincidence! I live next door. Nice to meet you, neighbor,” he finished with a radiant smile.

And Harry... Harry didn’t know how he’d done it. It just didn’t make sense. But he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Riddle was responsible for this. He knew it in the same way he knew that magic existed and the sky was blue. He didn’t know the details of _how_ or _why_ it was true, but that didn’t change the fact that it _was_.

He slammed the door in Riddle’s stupid face.

* * *

On Monday, Harry once again found himself sitting in the Minister’s office with Riddle. He had decided to adopt a new strategy: he was going to steadfastly ignore the fact that they now lived next to each other and hope against hope that Riddle would return the favor.

“I’ve been making basic profiles on the people who have access to this office, but it would help if I knew what the intruders were looking for,” Harry said while flipping through his notes. “Too many people, too many potential motives.”

Riddle hummed in thought, still flicking through his own papers. “What do you know about Wilhelmina’s political platform?”

The question caught him off guard. “...I know she’s very education-focused, which is probably how she got enough votes to win despite being a halfblood. She’s not vocally pro-creature, but she votes in their favor more often than not.” Harry wracked his brain to remember more of Hermione’s political rants. “She’s less isolationist than the past few Ministers, at least towards other magical governments. Her tax plans tend to favor wealthy purebloods, but I guess she has to throw them a bone if she wants to avoid being assassinated.” He paused. “Is there any evidence that this is an assassination plot?”

Riddle shook his head. “Not yet. This looks more like they were trying to get insight into her long-term plans. They won’t risk an assassination attempt unless they get their answers and decide that she is too dangerous to live. If we’re good at our jobs, things will never progress to that point.”

Harry gave him a weird look. “You’re very good at that,” he said.

“Good at what?”

“Speaking as if you’re on her side.”

At that, Riddle actually rolled his eyes. “Harry, please. Your paranoia is endearing as always, but the fact remains that if I wanted to snoop through Wilhelmina’s desk, I simply _would_. And I wouldn’t be amateurish enough about it to get caught.”

“Endear-,” Harry spluttered, “You don’t- I- Why should I believe you?! You, Riddle? You acted like the purebloods’ pet muggleborn throughout school, but suddenly you want me to believe that you actually support a halfblood, liberal politician? Is this a joke?”

“Please, call me Tom,” he said with a tight smile. “We’re colleagues now. And I’m afraid I’m completely serious,” Riddle said. “Do you know what the progressive stance on muggleborns is, at the moment?”

Harry felt like tearing his hair out. He had almost forgotten how difficult it was to get answers out of Riddle. After a moment, he grit his teeth and answered, “The progressives support the inclusion of muggleborns into our world, and the traditionalists are against it.”

“It’s not quite that simple,” Rid- T- _Riddle_ replied. “The question of what to do with muggleborns has been a constant source of tension in magical governments since the implementation of the Statute of Secrecy. You’re correct that traditionalist purebloods don’t want to allow muggleborns into our society at all. However, the more _progressive_ purebloods have always pushed for muggleborns to be taken away from their muggle families at a young age and raised by magical families instead.”

That shocked Harry out of his irritation. “But that’s barbaric! That’s what Grindlewald did! That’s… that’s what the _Nazis_ did!”

“Yes,” Riddle agreed grimly. “You have to admit it’s quite an effective tactic, human rights violations aside.”

“But that’s not what we do. Muggleborns are raised by their parents.”

“Yes. When neither side was able to win out against the other, the Wizengamot reached a compromise. Muggleborns are left to their own devices until the age of eleven, at which point we introduce them to our world.”

“But that’s,” Harry began. He had to pause for a moment to gather his thoughts. “How different is that from stealing them away as babies? We take them to boarding school for the majority of their formative years. Do the parents even get a choice in sending their children to Hogwarts?”

He remembered a late night he’d spent talking with Hermione, long after Ron had fallen asleep. She had confessed that she felt so distant from her parents after she graduated. She visited them as often as she could, but she felt like a guest in her childhood home. When had her parents realized they were losing her? Had they known the moment Hermione picked up her wand that she would one day leave their world for good?

“They don’t,” Riddle answered. “Muggles can’t provide an adequate magical education and can be prosecuted for child endangerment and neglect if they don’t enroll their child in a magical school.”

Harry slammed his hands on the table between them. “That’s bullshit! We’re _so_ benevolent for not stealing babies away from their parents, but we do it anyway when they’re eleven? We don’t tell them about their magic before then, leaving them and their families to struggle with their accidental magic alone? We deny them the opportunity to really get to know the muggle world, and we throw them into a new world where they know _nothing_? _That’s_ our compromise!?”

“Muggles who know about us are just as much of a risk to our society as an uneducated magical,” Riddle pointed out. “And a magical child without a proper education is a danger to themselves and those around them.”

“A magical child being raised by fearful muggles who don’t understand what’s going on is _in danger!_ ” Harry snapped. His magic lashed around him, feeling like static in the air.

Riddle looked at him passively for a few moments before smiling. He pushed a folder over to Harry’s side of the table. “I’m glad you agree.”

Harry paused, his magic faltering in confusion. “What’s this?”

“This,” Riddle said, flipping the folder open, “is Wilhelmina’s plan for earlier introduction of muggleborns. Or, more accurately in some cases, muggle-raised magicals.” He gave Harry a significant look. “It has several stages that she intends to introduce slowly over the course of her time as Minister. In the first stage, she proposes that a trained Ministry official visits each family when the Trace first registers accidental magic from the child, to explain magic and provide resources for raising a magical child. As a precaution, a secrecy charm will be applied to every member of the household to prevent them from discussing magic with anyone who doesn’t already know about it.

“In the second stage, she will establish monthly meetup programs for pre-Hogwarts aged muggleborn children, which double as monthly support groups for their nonmagical parents. The children will have the opportunity to spend time with other magical children, where they can practice their abilities and make connections before they go to Hogwarts. The parents will have a place where they can speak openly about their child’s development and receive support from parents in similar situations.

“The third, and most ambitious stage, will create yearly check-ins for pre-Hogwarts aged children, where a healer will visit to confirm the physical, mental, and magical wellbeing of the child as well as answering any of the muggle parents’ questions. This will also help identify and mitigate any abuse that could come from fearful muggle family members.”

By the time he finished speaking, Harry’s mouth was agape. “…What happens if the muggle guardians are abusing the child?” he asked eventually.

“The child will be removed from the situation and placed with a temporary caregiver until more suitable arrangements can be made.”

This was…

...This would have changed the life of a young Harry Potter.

With a deep breath, Harry willed away the lump in his throat and the stinging in his eyes. “That doesn’t change the fact that we take them away when they’re eleven,” he pointed out faintly.

Despite the seriousness of the conversation, Tom’s eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled. “Perhaps you can help us develop a fourth stage.”

He let out a stunned breath. “She’d have three-quarters of the Wizengamot after her head if word of this got out all at once.”

“Yes.”

“And you… support these changes?”

Tom just gave him a significant look.

Yeah. Yeah, that made sense. In this, at least, they were on exactly the same page. “Okay. How are we going to catch this intruder?”

* * *

Two weeks later, Harry took a steadying breath before knocking on the door of Grimmauld Place. He was overdue for a visit, he knew that, but in the chaos his life had devolved into recently, he was embarrassed to admit his godfather had slipped his mind.

There was a sound of something heavy falling to the floor in response to his knock, followed by a raised voice that called, “I’m coming, just give me a- shit, Moony, stop leaving your stupid shoes all over the-,” the door opened, revealing one disheveled Sirius Black. “Harry!”

Harry couldn’t help but grin back. “Hey Sirius,” he greeted.

If the man had had a tail in this form, it would have been wagging at top speed. “Thank Merlin you came when you did, I was dying of boredom,” he exclaimed. “Come on, come in! What in Godric’s name are you doing knocking on the front door? You know the floo’s open to you.”

Harry stepped in, letting the nostalgia wash over him. The townhome was hardly recognizable as the Black ancestral home after all the renovations Sirius and Remus had done on it, and although he had only lived there for a couple years, it felt like home to Harry. “Felt like having a bit of a walk,” he answered honestly. “Is Remus not here?”

The two of them moved towards the sitting room. “Remus is at _work_ ,” Sirius complained. “He got a job at a little muggle bookstore. Told them he has a medical condition, and they give him three days off for his ‘treatments’ every month. Don’t know why he wanted a job in the first place, Merlin knows we have more money than we know what to do with.” He could pout all he wanted, but he couldn’t hide the way he was practically glowing with pride at his husband’s success. “But forget about that, what’s new with you? How’s the new flat? Haven’t seen you around much.”

“Sorry about that,” Harry said sheepishly, settling down onto the couch. “I’m working on a case that’s been taking up a lot of my free time. And the flat is good; way nicer than my last one. Oh, and I saw Cygnus at the Ministry the other day, by the way.”

Sirius snorted. “My condolences then. Cousin Cygnus is a real piece of work. Never quite got over the fact that I became head of the family after dear old Mum died.” He sat down across from Harry, flopping carelessly onto the upholstery like the dog he was. “What’s the case?”

A tray of tea and biscuits appeared silently on the table between them.

“Thank you, Kreacher,” Harry called to the room at large before picking up his cup. “Someone broke into the Minister’s office without tripping any of the alarms. My… co-investigator and I have been pulling our hair out over it for the past two weeks, but we still haven’t figured out who they are or how they got in.”

“And you think they’re going to try again,” Sirius guessed.

Harry sighed in frustration. “We know they didn’t get what they were looking for. The Department of Mysteries is taking the wards down tomorrow night to rework some of the runes. It’s top secret, so obviously we’re expecting another break in. My co-investigator and I are going to spell the place to hell and back to catch the intruder, but I’m not sure it’ll be enough. Whoever it was, they already slipped through the wards before. There’s no guarantee we’ll catch them if they show up again.”

Sirius mulled it over for a long moment, and Harry took the opportunity to savor his tea. Kreacher always used some blend of herbs that he could never quite replicate when he tried.

“You got wards against animagi?” Sirius spoke up eventually.

“…No,” Harry answered slowly. His mind quickly supplied him with images of the air vents, the crack under the door, the abundance of small hiding places in the cluttered office. Animagus wards weren’t common, due to how rare the skill was and how annoying the spells were to cast, but the man in front of him was living proof that an animagus could wreak all sorts of havoc. “I’m an idiot,” he groaned.

“Ah, don’t worry about it, pup, it’s not like your godfather is an animagus or anything,” Sirius teased.

“Don’t gloat until we’ve caught them,” Harry warned. “You might be wrong.”

He probably wasn’t wrong.

They moved on to different topics from there, catching up on everything that had happened since they last saw each other. Sirius even managed to extract an invitation for dinner at Harry’s new flat the following week. Eventually, against his best intentions, Harry found himself talking about Riddle.

“-so I’m sitting there working through this _massive_ pile of books on obscure warding techniques, and he comes to sit next to me, and I shit you not, his pile is _exactly_ one book taller than mine! And he looks at me with that smug look of his, like, ‘Oh, slacking a bit today are we, Potter?’ and I just-”

He cut off when Sirius snorted into his teacup. “Sorry, sorry, I just,” he snickered as he set it down, “haven’t heard you get this worked up since you were at school with that Riddle bloke. This co-investigator of yours really pushes your buttons.”

At Harry’s guilty look, Sirius paused.

“No,” he said.

“Yes,” Harry admitted.

A big, bastardly grin spread across his godfather’s face.

“You put that expression away, Sirius Black,” Harry told him, pointing a finger at his face. “It’s not like that.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Sirius replied, schooling his expression. He quickly broke back into a delighted grin. “I can’t wait to tell Remus.”

Harry buried his head in his hands and groaned.

Sirius moved to join him on the couch and patted him on the shoulders. “There, there, pup,” he said reassuringly, though there was still a smile in his voice. “Tell godfather Sirius your worries.”

“He’s just _such_ a prick,” Harry began. “And the worst person I’ve ever met. But I’m starting to think maybe he’s… not that bad?”

Sirius hummed. “Like maybe you were wrong about him, or like you were right but you kind of like him regardless?”

Harry glanced up. “I don’t know. Maybe the second one? Is that a thing that can happen?”

A sharp laugh. “Pup, I loved James like a brother, but he was the most annoying piece of work I’ve ever had the misfortune of being best friends with.”

Harry was quiet for a long moment, and Sirius let him think.

“What do you do,” he asked, “if you know someone is a bad person, but you also kind of get along?”

Now it was Sirius’ time to sit quietly in thought. “I think,” he began slowly, “it depends. Your mum was the kindest, bravest woman I ever met, and I know part of her loved Sni- Snape, even at the very end. And I think Snape needed a friend like her, if I’m being honest.

“But she didn’t love him the way he wanted her to. It wasn’t enough for him, and he’s the one who let that feeling fester inside him. It didn’t matter what Lily said or did, there was nothing she could do to change his mind if he didn’t want to change. She wasn’t his mind healer. So I guess what I’m trying to say is, you can love someone as much as you want, but you can’t force them to change who they are. You have to decide if who they are is someone you want to have in your life.”

Harry leaned his head against his godfather’s shoulder with a sigh. “I wish I’d gotten to know them. Mum and dad.”

“Me too, kiddo.”

They sat in silence for a while.

“I’m glad you feel like you can come to me for this kind of thing, you know,” Sirius said eventually. “When we- when Remus and I came back to Britain and found out you were still alive, I. I realized I had made the biggest mistake of my life, leaving like we did. We didn’t think we had anything left in Britain worth returning to. We thought we were doing the right thing, hunting Snape down across the globe after what he did. But we left you alone, pup.” Even with his head on Sirius’ shoulder, Harry could tell there were tears growing in his godfather’s eyes. “I missed out on so much of your life, and you had to grow up with, with _Tuney_ and her awful brood.”

“You didn’t know,” Harry spoke up. “The house had collapsed, there’s no way you could have known I was still alive in there. And growing up with the Dursleys was… bad, I’m not going to lie, but I’m okay. You got me out as soon as you could.”

Sirius wrapped an arm around his shoulders and squeezed. “You’re sweet, kiddo. Can’t imagine who you got that from. Must’ve been Moony.”

It wasn’t that funny, but the next thing either of them knew, they were laughing. If their laughter became a little tearful at some points, they didn’t bother to point it out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And they were neighbors (oh my god they were neighbors)
> 
> Comments and kudos are always appreciated! I love to hear your reactions <3


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Harry takes a step closer. Tom takes a step too far.

Harry tore through his work satchel, but to no avail. It wasn’t there. He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. This was stupid. He had more important things to focus on. The wards on Wilhelmina’s office were down tonight, and he needed to be ready to leave at the drop of a hat.

But he couldn’t get it off his mind.

With a growl, he pulled out his wand and cast a point-me spell. He tried, unsuccessfully, to find it in himself to be surprised when his wand spun to point directly towards the flat next door. Now he had a choice to make. He could be a reasonable adult and wait to speak to Riddle at work tomorrow, or he could barge into his flat this very moment like a complete maniac.

Well.

Riddle had already seen him at his most unhinged years ago. Not like there was much to lose there. Plus, if Riddle wanted to be neighbors so bad, he could damn well deal with the consequences.

The man in question at least had the good grace to look genuinely shocked to see Harry at his front door. “I want my dragon back, you bastard,” Harry demanded without prelude.

Riddle’s brows furrowed, clearly baffled by this turn of events. His confusion, coupled with his casual outfit, almost made him appear human. It was a good look on him.

The voice in his head that sounded like Sirius began howling with laughter, and he firmly ignored it.

“Your…” Riddle repeated, still clearly thrown for a loop. Then his eyes widened with realization. “The figurine,” he said with a snap of his fingers. He turned abruptly and stalked back into his flat, leaving Harry in the doorway. Before Harry could debate whether or not to follow, he called, “Close the door behind you!” over his shoulder.

With the sinking feeling that he had bitten off more than he could chew, Harry did as he was asked and followed Riddle.

The flat was, unsurprisingly, very neat and tidy. What was surprising were the signs of life littered around the room. The bookshelves were well-stocked, but several books laid seemingly forgotten on the table and countertops. The kitchen was clean except for a handful of dishes in the sink, and Harry found himself confronted once again with the disconcerting idea that Tom Riddle might, in fact, be a human being.

The table was cluttered with parchment, files, and, notably, a single napkin covered in scribbles, but Riddle pushed them out of the way and gestured for Harry to take a seat. Warily, he did.

It was bizarre, like looking in a funhouse mirror. Riddle searched through the papers like a man possessed before seeming to remember something and snatching up the napkin. While he reread whatever he’d written on it, he pulled Harry’s glass dragon out of his pocket. “I didn’t know it was yours, of course, it was only an idle experiment, but now that you’re here- yes it’s so obvious, I knew it would need a stable, defined source of magic, but I didn’t even _consider-_ ”

“Riddle.”

The man snatched up a self-inking quill and began drawing some form of sigil on the back of a scrap piece of parchment, clearly not listening. “Not exactly useful, but it certainly opens up some doors for further iterations. And the shape is perfect, dragons are-”

“Riddle.”

“-excellent conductors of magical energy. Handmade as well, it’s going to-”

“ _Tom_.”

That jolted him out of his rambling.

“What in Merlin’s name are you talking about?”

He blinked at him. Harry might have felt bad about breaking his flow if he had understood anything that was happening. Tom opened his mouth, closed it, reconsidered something, and finally settled for saying, “Just watch.” He set the figurine on top of the sigil, pulled out his wand, and began tapping various points on the dragon. With a final tap on its snout, he commanded, “ _Animari_.”

With a shudder, the white glass dragon stretched into motion. It blinked its ruby-red eyes, lashed its spiked little tail, and peered curiously up at the two of them. It seemed to decide it liked Harry better and tapped its way over to bump its snout against his fingers.

He moved automatically to pet it, but his expression was frozen in astonishment.

“Normally, animated objects only have as much magical energy as you put into them,” Tom explained. “They need to be recharged, or they’ll go dormant. But I had a theory that one could be made to subsist off of ambient magical energy in its environment. The only problem was that it would need a defined source to draw from. This one,” he said a touch smugly, “is attuned to your magical signature. It lives purely off of the magic you radiate without thinking.”

It was at this point that Harry realized what was happening. In the rare moments when Tom dropped his masks, he had always been a little... intense. A little manic, like a flame burning too brightly. Looking at him, Harry saw that same unvarnished fervor. Somehow, for some unknown reason, he had decided not to bother with pretense this evening.

The dragon preened while he rubbed its cheek with one finger, and Harry elected to set that thought aside for the moment. “Won’t it be draining? This looks like a fairly complex animation. Surely I don’t put off enough magic to fuel this little guy all the time.”

Now it was Tom’s turn to look at him like he was insane.

“What?”

“You radiate more raw magic than anyone I’ve ever met,” Tom said with disbelief.

“What? No I don’t,” Harry denied automatically. “I’m nowhere near as powerful as someone like Dumbledore.”

“Yes,” he agreed slowly, “but Dumbledore is powerful because of his ironclad control over his mind and magic. You simply have an unbelievable _amount_ of magic, which you make absolutely no effort to rein in.”

“I do not!”

“You do t-!” he began before cutting himself off abruptly. He laughed once, a manic, incredulous sound. Then he got up and stalked to the kitchen cabinets. “Hermione warned me you were oblivious, but I suppose I thought she only meant socially,” he said as he grabbed a bottle of firewhiskey and two glasses.

“Herm- When did you talk to Hermione?” Harry demanded. The dragon, sensing his agitation, snapped at Tom as he sat back down at the table.

“Do you mean when did we talk about you, or when did we speak most recently?” he asked as he poured out two portions and slid a glass towards Harry. The dragon took the opportunity to rake its blunt claws across his sleeve, and he gave it an amused look before obligingly retracting his arm.

“Both! Since when do you two talk!?” Out of habit, Harry picked up his glass and took a sip. It was, unfortunately, excellent firewhiskey.

Tom drank from his own glass before answering. “As two muggleborns fighting their way to the top of the Ministry, we try to have lunch every now and then to exchange notes. You’ve come up in conversation before. And, as I’m sure you know, we’ve worked with each other on drafting a few bills.”

At that, Harry choked on his drink. Instead of finding words, he just stared at Tom in betrayed bewilderment in the hope that he would elaborate.

“The Gibbon-McKinnon bill?” Tom provided. “Regulating magical-muggle trade? We were brought in as ‘experts,’ seeing as we’re some of the only muggle-raised magicals in lawmaking.”

“She didn’t mention that she worked with you on that…” Harry said with furrowed brows. “Wasn’t that the bill that Dumbledore was trying to counter? Hermione was furious.”

Tom snorted. “For someone who claims to be pro-muggle, he doesn’t seem to care about them. If we had loosened trade restrictions as much as he wanted, magicals would have crashed the muggle economy in months. They have no way of detecting transfigured counterfeits. We would have eaten them alive.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Merlin, he’s such a cunt.”

“Cheers,” Tom deadpanned, raising his glass. “I’ll drink to that.”

For a moment, Harry just stared. Yes, he was working with Riddle on this assignment. Yes, he wasn’t as bad as Harry had thought, and he was starting to seem like someone Harry could get along with. This felt like something different, though.

This felt like an olive branch.

With a deliberate motion, Harry clinked his glass against Tom’s. In sync, they downed their firewhiskey.

“You know,” Harry began as he poured them both another portion, “Dumbledore’s opposition on that bill is what finally convinced Hermione that he isn’t the beacon of all that is good in the world.”

“I seem to remember you being a fan of his as well,” Tom pointed out, leaning back in his seat.

Harry made a disgruntled sound. “He was the one who introduced me to the magical world. He was the first person who ever claimed to give a damn about me. By the time he took me under his wing, I wouldn’t hear a word against him.”

Tom watched him intently. “What changed?”

“Ironically enough, it was sixth year that brought me to my senses,” he said with a bit of challenge in his voice. Tension rose in the air as they eyed each other for a moment, waiting to see if the other would acknowledge it. When Tom said nothing, Harry continued. “I begged him and Dippet every year not to send me back to my Aunt and Uncle, and they never budged an inch. But the school was going to close permanently, and the Blitz was still ongoing, and I thought they would finally take pity on me.”

Riddle didn’t ask why he didn’t want to go back to his relative’s house. He didn’t need to: the details had all been in the Prophet.

Harry laughed joylessly and swirled his drink in an absent motion. “They didn’t care. They were going to send me back to that house, in the middle of a warzone, _permanently_ , and they didn’t give a damn.” He took another sip of the firewhiskey. “Of course, it never came to that. The attacks stopped, Surrey wasn’t hit too badly by the bombs, and it only took until midsummer for Sirius to finally get custody of me. I never forgot, though.”

It was Tom’s turn to take a hearty gulp from his glass. He looked like he was about to say something, but then he changed his mind at the last moment. “I knew from first year that they would never care, but it didn’t stop me from asking every year anyway. You already know what my home life was like.”

“I know the basics,” Harry admitted. “Dumbledore told me some, and I filled in some of the blanks on my own. He was convinced you were going Dark. He never said it so plainly, but he wanted to train me to fight you one day.”

Again, Tom started to say something, but he stopped himself. Instead, he said, “He was the person who introduced me to the magical world as well. I didn’t exactly give him the best first impression. The matrons at the orphanage saw my accidental magic as the work of the Devil, and nothing I did could convince them otherwise. I learned very quickly that there is a pecking order in life, and freaks were always at the bottom.” He fell silent for a moment, swirling the firewhiskey around in his glass. “That is, until I learned how to control my magic. After that, I discovered that if I was strong enough, scary enough, no one could touch me. Power, at the time, meant the same thing as safety.”

“But then you met Dumbledore.”

Tom gave a self-deprecating laugh. “I was a little tyrant. It didn’t even occur to me to play nice with him, I didn’t know _how_ to play nice yet, and by the time I realized my mistake, it was too late. He had already seen what a devilchild I was, and nothing I did from then on could shake that image from his mind.”

When Tom looked back across the table, Harry was staring at him like he was a puzzle he just couldn’t solve.

“What?” Tom asked, slightly defensive.

The look didn’t go away. “Why are you being so upfront with me?”

His defensiveness melted into something else. It almost looked like nervousness, and the night kept getting weirder and weirder for Harry. “Yes, I suppose it is a bit… out of character. Alright.” He threw back the rest of his firewhiskey and seemed to brace himself before looking Harry square in the eyes. It was a surprisingly Gryffindor move, and Harry found himself sitting up straighter in response. “I know we have a… tense history, which I am partially-”

“Entirely.”

“ _-equally_ to blame for. But we’re going to be working closely together for the foreseeable future, so we should be able to at least tolerate each other’s presence. More than that though, I think we could be... friends, if we tried. I’m being open with you because no one else has ever been able to see through me so consistently, and because you hate it when I pretend around you. For some reason, you tend to prefer honesty.”

Harry had no idea what expression was on his face. There were so many things he could say in response, most of them contradictory, all of them confusing, but what came out was, “Everyone prefers honesty!”

That shocked a small laugh out of Tom, some of the tension bleeding off of him. “In my experience, those who genuinely prefer honesty are rare. It’s part of your charm.”

Harry blamed the alcohol for the flush creeping across his face. “You keep saying things like that. About me being endearing or charming.”

“Because you are,” he said plainly, like it was just a fact. “You make no effort to hide what you’re feeling, and somehow people naturally gravitate to you regardless. You radiate sincerity almost as much as you radiate magic. It’s… refreshing.”

“Okay,” Harry said with a laugh, “now I know you’re just having me on.”

Tom seemed almost offended. “You've always liked to pretend that you are nothing special. You try so hard to keep your talents hidden, but they shine through despite your best efforts. Just look at your work as an auror; you have been instrumental in a number of difficult cases, but you have yet to accept a single promotion that has been offered to you. You can lie to yourself, but I will not. And,” he added, “you can change the topic, but it doesn’t change the fact that I think we’re already on our way to becoming friends.”

There… really wasn’t anything Harry could think to say to that. “I liked you better when you were just a lying, two-faced bastard.”

This time, Tom burst out into laughter. It was a funny laugh, Harry thought. Too high-pitched. More of a cackle, really, but he found himself liking it nonetheless. It sounded real. “No, you didn’t. And I for one am quite enjoying this whole ‘honesty’ thing. It’s quite freeing. Is this how you feel all the time?” His eyes were glittering with mirth, and Harry found himself staring into them. That and the slight flush of alcohol on his cheeks made him seem all the more human.

Before Harry could think of a response, they were interrupted by shrill ringing from the wall behind him. “Shit, are the walls here really that thin? Sorry, that’ll be my cousin calling me. I don’t want him to think I’m ignoring him - I’ll just go run and tell him I’ll call him back.”

Tom had gone oddly still, the smile frozen on his face. “Go ahead,” he said in a careful tone.

Harry hesitated for a second before heading back to his own flat at a light jog so he wouldn’t miss the call. Whatever had set Tom off, he could ask about it after answering Dudley. It could only be Dudley, after all - his cousin was the only reason he owned a muggle phone.

“Hey Dudley,” Harry greeted when he picked up the phone. “Listen, I’m really sorry, but I-”

“My parents’ house burned down last night.”

The world ground to a halt.

“What?”

He heard Dudley sigh. “They think it was an electrical fire. The fire crew did what they could, but it’s all pretty much gone.”

“Are-” he broke off and had to try again. “Are they…?”

“Mum and dad are fine,” his cousin reassured him. “Some smoke inhalation and minor burns, but they’re both fine. They smelled the smoke and got out before it got too bad. I know that house didn’t exactly have a lot of good memories for you, but… I thought you’d want to know.”

“I- Thank you, but forget about me for a second. Are you okay?”

“I’m still a bit in shock if I’m being honest. I’m handling a lot of the details for them right now, so I haven’t really had time to sit down and process.”

“Yeah,” Harry said with sympathy, mind reeling, “I can imagine. I’m so sorry Dudley. Have you slept?”

“Not yet. This is about the first free moment I’ve had.” The weariness dripped off of his every word.

That was… oddly touching. Their relationship was still fragile, despite their tentative attempts to build some kind of connection over the past year. That Dudley had even thought to contact Harry was a shock.

“Get some sleep, Dudley,” Harry said softly. “You sound like you’re about to collapse. I’ll call you on Sunday, but call me before then if you need someone to talk to. And… thank you. For thinking of me.”

After they hung up, Harry stood alone in his darkened kitchen, staring blankly at the wall that separated his flat from the one next door. Thinking about the expression on Tom’s face when he’d left.

Emotions were coursing through him too fast for him to name. It was like he had finally been given all the pieces of the puzzle, and now his brain was rapidly connecting them. When he saw the image it was putting together, he wanted to scream and cry and laugh until he was left raw and empty inside.

Well. At least he knew he had good instincts.

Harry allowed himself one ragged inward breath and held it for a moment before exhaling forcefully. Then he willed his spine straight, turned on his heel, and went to confront Tom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: the reckoning.
> 
> To answer what is surely the most pressing question on your minds: Tom didn’t intentionally steal Harry’s dragon. Harry accidentally left it in Wilhelmina’s office, and Tom saw it, thought to himself, “Oh this will be perfect for that project,” and yoinked it. It didn’t even really register to him as stealing. There was zero thought given to whose dragon it was.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At last, answers.

Tom was waiting for him when he came back. He leaned back against the kitchen counter, his sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and watched Harry the way one would watch an angry hippogriff. “How is your cousin?” he asked carefully.

Harry ignored him, stalking determinedly into his personal space. He had to tilt his head back slightly to keep eye contact, but if there was one thing being an auror taught him, it was how to intimidate people who were taller than him. “I’m done playing games, Tom. I want answers. Now.”

Tom’s expression was carefully neutral. “Ask a question, then.”

“What caused the fire at my aunt and uncle’s house?” Harry growled.

“An _incendio_. They had spare blankets stored in the cupboard under the stairs, piled on top of an old cot. Quite the fire hazard, I’d say,” Tom said, his handsome face twisting into a sneer.

Harry didn’t take the bait. “How did Morgana’s Lace get into the vents of my old flat building?”

A glare. “I spoke with another occupant who was unhappy with the state of the building. I suggested a way for her to get out of her lease early, and she must have taken it to heart.”

“And then you just happened to let Hermione know how happy you were in your new flat,” Harry surmised.

It wasn’t a question, and Tom remained silent.

“Who broke the lift while I was in it with Wilhelmina?”

“This is ridiculous, you don’t need me to-”

“Who. Broke. The. Lift.”

“I did!” Tom snapped.

“There it is,” Harry crowed triumphantly. His lips pulled up into a sharp grin. “You know, you almost had me. I was really starting to think you’d turned over a new leaf. But you’re just the same as you’ve always been, aren’t you? Still the same manipulative bastard who’s only in it for himself. Who cares if anyone gets hurt - _Tom Riddle_ has bigger plans.”

“You’re one to talk,” Tom snarled. Now that his last mask had broken, he didn’t seem interested in putting it back in place. “For someone who demands honesty from the people around him, you put quite a lot of energy into lying to yourself.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I’m _talking_ about sixth year.”

* * *

Tom was making his rounds for the night when a hand shot out from an alcove, grabbed the front of his school robes, and shoved him against a wall. A wand was immediately aimed at his throat, and Tom’s eyes followed its length until they came to rest on the glaring face of one Harry Potter.

Interesting.

Tom’s own wand was in his hand, aimed at Potter’s side. If Potter noticed, he didn’t react. Tom decided to play along for the moment, curious as to what had driven the perpetual thorn in his side to attack him in the middle of the night.

“Nice to see you too, Potter,” he said with a smile. “If you wanted a private rendezvous in a quiet alcove, you only had to ask.”

For once, Potter didn’t fall for the bait. “Cut the crap, Riddle. You need to close the Chamber.”

Tom abruptly felt like he’d been doused in ice water, but he fought to keep his expression neutral. “I have no idea what you’re talking about. Now let me go, and maybe I’ll consider not docking points from Gryffindor for this.”

Potter dug his wand into his throat, and Tom held himself back from retaliating. Patience was key. Reacting too strongly would be damning. He had a role to play, even if Potter had an irritating habit of bringing out his worst tendencies.

“I know you’re a parselmouth, idiot,” Potter said, and Tom froze. “Unless you’ve forgotten our conversation on the train before first year. I know you’re the Heir of Slytherin.”

Mentally, Tom cursed himself. He had been… eager, in meeting another boy who was new to the magical world, and, ignorant to the meaning of his ability, had asked if Potter could speak to animals. He didn’t remember admitting he could speak to snakes. Of all the ridiculous, foolish mistakes. Aloud, he said, “You don’t have any evidence of that.”

Potter stared at him for a moment before something in his expression shuttered closed. He let go of Tom’s robe and took a step back. Somehow, this put Tom more on edge than the wand to his throat had. This was a new side of Potter, one he had never encountered. That made it dangerous. “You’re right,” the boy said neutrally. “I don’t have any evidence. Well, I guess I was wrong. Good evening then, Riddle.”

And then he was walking away, as if their interaction had merely been a polite chat.

Tom narrowed his eyes at Potter’s retreating form. Potter had never backed down like this, especially not something so important. “Wait,” he ordered. The Gryffindor paused, then turned back with that same damned neutral expression. “What are you playing at, Potter?” he asked.

“I just thought you’d want to put a stop to the attacks too,” Potter answered, “seeing as you’re probably the only person in the castle who wants to go home even less than I do.”

Tom stiffened. How could Potter possibly know about the orphanage? “You’ve been spending too much time around Dumbledore. Drop the cryptic act and explain yourself.”

Potter narrowed his eyes at the jab. His renewed anger settled some of the uncertainty in Tom’s chest. Familiar territory. He knew how to handle an angry Harry Potter. “A student died, Riddle. A bit of muggleborn terrorization? A few petrifications? That, the board of governors can ignore. But a death? They’re going to close the school. Dumbledore told me himself.”

Tom’s world ground to a standstill. Close Hogwarts? And send him back to the orphanage? They wouldn’t.

 _But they would_ , a traitorous voice in his head whispered. _They don’t care about you, you’re just a filthy mudblood to them._

Potter continued, holding him in place with those accusing green eyes. “So if you happen to know who the Heir is,” he said with a pointed look, “You should tell them to close the Chamber. Tonight. Or someone might have to take matters into their own hands, proof or no proof.”

He resumed walking away, and Tom glared at his retreating form before whipping around and stalking back the way he came. There was work to do.

* * *

“Isn’t it incredible, Harry?” Hermione asked.

Harry just sat there, staring at the head table where Headmaster Dippet had just announced that the beast responsible for Myrtle Warren’s death had been found and the person masquerading as the Heir of Slytherin had been arrested.

An acromantula.

Rubeus Hagrid.

That _fucking_ bastard.

Harry turned to look at Riddle, to whom Dippet had just presented an award for special services to the school. He was pointedly not looking in Harry’s direction.

Harry had known it was a longshot to threaten Riddle the way he had, but he was getting desperate. He didn’t know what he’d expected to achieve with the confrontation, but it hadn’t been _this_. An innocent kid was being framed for murder.

What should he do? What _could_ he do? Riddle was right; he had no proof. All he had was a half-remembered conversation on the train and a history of suspicious events that he had never been able to solidly pin on Riddle.

Not to mention his well-known rivalry with the boy in question. Riddle delighted in knowing exactly how to push Harry’s buttons, prodding Harry into rage at just the right moment to get him in trouble. No one in their right mind at Hogwarts would believe a word out of Harry’s mouth if he tried to warn them about him.

But there was Hagrid to consider. He was just a fourth year, and although he and Harry had never interacted much, he was still innocent. Could Harry live with himself if he allowed the boy’s wand to be snapped without putting up any sort of fight?

The acromantula was real though, the Slytherin part of his mind reasoned. Hagrid had brought an incredibly dangerous creature into the school, and he would have been expelled anyway as soon as it was found. And Harry would bet his last galleon Dumbledore was going to testify on the boy’s behalf, too. With the political sway the man had after his defeat of Grindelwald, Hagrid might not spend more than a few weeks in Azkaban.

Not for the first time, Harry cursed Dumbledore. Always happy to pick you up, but never around to stop you from getting knocked down in the first place.

Harry could see the events of the next weeks playing out as clearly as if he were a Seer. Hagrid would be taken away, and the petrifications would stop. No one with an ounce of critical thought would believe Hagrid was really responsible, but when no new attacks happened, the whole Chamber of Secrets fiasco would be played off as a sick prank.

And, Harry thought as guilt settled heavily around his throat, the school would stay open.

Whatever Slytherin’s monster was, it was still in the school. Harry imagined Riddle had sealed it back inside the Chamber, but even if Harry managed to convince people that Riddle was the Heir, surely not even the magical world would allow their children to stay in the castle with the ancient beast.

It was then that Hermione prompted him with a concerned look. “Harry? Are you alright?”

Later, Hermione would realize there was no way Hagrid was the one causing the attacks. She would never forgive him if she knew he had known the truth and done nothing. In that moment, however, she was just a muggleborn relieved to not be in danger anymore.

“...I’m fine,” he replied with a tight smile. “Just shocked.”

Across the great hall, Tom Riddle canceled a listening charm and smirked.

* * *

Tom was staring contemptuously down at Harry, who still had him caged in against the kitchen counter. “When it came down to it, you didn’t care about what was wrong or right. The only thing you cared about was saving your own skin. And now you have the audacity to act like I’m the only monster here. We’re the _same_ , Harry Potter. The only difference between us is that I never flinched away from getting my hands dirty.”

“We’re nothing alike,” Harry hissed. “I wasn’t the one who opened the Chamber.”

Tom bared his teeth in a poor semblance of a smile. “But you let an innocent boy take the fall, didn’t you? You didn’t even try to convince Dumbledore. He would have believed you, and you know it. But you didn’t tell him.”

Harry bared his teeth right back. “I _did_ tell him.” That caught Tom off guard, a flicker of surprise across his face. “I went to him before I confronted you, and you know what he told me? He told me there was nothing he could do, his hands were tied, but that _I_ could still put a stop to things. I think he meant for us to have some grand battle, where I would kill you before you could turn into whatever monster he thought you were. So _excuse_ me for thinking there was something in you worth saving. I’ll keep it in mind next time.”

Tom laughed again, sharply, like it hurt, and this time it sent chills down Harry’s spine. “You still don’t get it.” He met Harry’s eyes and took a step forward. Instinctively, Harry took a step back. “Whatever Dumbledore thought of me, he was right. I _was_ a budding dark lord. The magical world is in desperate need of a change, and I was going to be their reckoning. Those idiotic purebloods would have followed me to their deaths once they found out I was Slytherin’s heir. I was going to raze our world to the ground and build it anew, but then… You.” Harry only realized he was cornered when he felt the cabinets behind him dig into his back. “You got in my head. Some hotshot quidditch player who couldn’t be bothered to stay awake half the time in classes. Slytherin’s monster is a basilisk, did you know? I had a bloody _basilisk_. I had the entire school quaking in their boots, I was poised to kill anyone who stood in my way, and the very _hour_ you decided to end it, it was over.”

Harry wanted to interrupt, to say he didn’t care, but the words stuck in his throat. These were the answers to the questions he had been asking himself for years, and despite his better judgment, he couldn’t help but drink in the words.

Tom’s voice grew quiet. “I kept thinking about it. How did you do it? One single conversation, and the so-called future dark lord was… nothing. Just another scared orphan who would do anything not to be sent away. You taught me something that day. Real power can’t be gained by brute force. Real power comes in the form of a whispered word, a nudge in the right direction.” Here, he started gaining momentum again. “And I thought to myself, if you could halt the rise of a dark lord with just one conversation, imagine what I could do in a few decades with that pathetic herd of sheep we call a government. I wouldn’t have to tear it down. I could make it tear itself down, and no one would even notice until it was too late.”

They were close now, their faces just inches from each other. Harry’s eyes narrowed.

“So all of this shit with the Minister and the, the _burning down my relatives’ house_ , it was all, what, your way of saying thank you?” Harry spat incredulously. “Well, message received! You’re welcome, and thanks for deciding not to become a dark lord I guess. Now get the fuck out of my life.”

Harry moved to push Tom out of his way, but Tom caught him by the wrist. Not tight enough to hold him if he really wanted to get away, but enough to get his attention. “You can’t honestly tell me there’s not a part of you that’s glad to see them experience some misfortune for once. Not after how they treated you,” Tom said.

Harry opened his mouth to respond, but he hesitated.

Tom pressed his advantage. “I meant what I said, you know. About us being friends. I don’t… when you talk about wrong and right, I don’t understand it the way you do. But I’d like to try. Maybe if you explained it to me, I’d finally understand.”

Harry’s resolve visibly hardened. “That’s a lie.” This time, Harry really did push Tom away, putting a foot of space between them.

That caught Tom off guard. “It’s,” he began before stopping. “Let me try again.” He was silent for a moment, clearly weighing the words in his mind. If it were anyone else, Harry would have suspected him of buying time to think up a good lie. This was Tom though. Lying came as easily as breathing for him. For Tom, it was the truth that required effort. Maybe that was what gave Harry pause, waiting to see what he would come up with.

“You _do_ see something I don’t see,” Tom said at last. “Some inherent goodness in people. I always thought it was an act, because surely it had to be an act, but you genuinely care about other people. And I _don’t_ understand it. I don’t think I will ever understand it - that’s not something you can change and I wouldn’t want you to. I don’t care about people the way you seem to, but _you_ fascinate me. And I’m willing to play by your rules if it means being able to be near you.”

Some of the fire in Harry’s chest died down a bit. He pushed his glasses up to wearily rub the bridge of his nose. “You’re supposed to be a good person because it’s the right thing to do, not because you want to impress me.”

Tom’s lips quirked up. “That’s not a no.”

“I’m not a mind healer, Tom, it’s not my responsibility to, to _reform_ you. And I can’t let you keep… leaving dead birds as gifts on my porch like a sociopathic stray cat. I can’t live in fear that someone is going to inconvenience me one day and turn up missing the next. There have to be lines. Do you even understand why I’m upset that you burned down the Dursleys’ house?”

“I don’t understand why it bothers you,” Tom admitted. “I saw how thin you were at the start of every school year, and Hermione has let a few hints slip. If it were me, I would have gotten my revenge as soon as I got out from under their thumb.”

“How I handle my relatives is _my_ business,” Harry said firmly. “Just like it’s my business who I associate with and where I live.”

“They locked you in a cupboard, “ Tom snapped. “Having connections to the Minister will only boost your career, and that ramshackle hut you call a flat was falling apart around you. You’re so brainwashed by your relatives and Dumbledore that you can’t even imagine doing something for your own benefit!”

“It’s my life! I get to decide how to live it.”

Tom snorted derisively. “If you had it your way, you would live in mediocrity for the rest of your life. You are _extraordinary_ , Harry Potter,” he stressed. “Let me give you the world.”

For once, Harry didn’t flinch away from the compliment, but his eyes were disappointed as he looked at him. “I can’t keep doing this, Tom. Stop.”

Just when Tom opened his mouth to reply, they were cut off as crimson sparks shot from Harry’s wand. They met each other’s gaze with wide eyes.

“The wards,” they said as one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all have no idea how excited I've been to finally get to this part.
> 
> Like Harry, we got a lot of answers in this chapter! Did you anticipate any of them? Did any of them catch you off guard? I'd love to hear your reactions!
> 
> Up next: the final chapter!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Final chapter! Who's ready? (Me. The answer is me. I'm so ready, god I love this fic)
> 
> I wanted to add a little content warning here, given the current state of the world, that some of the events in this chapter edge into police brutality territory in a way that might make some readers uncomfortable. A more in-depth description can be found in the end notes.

The shift from personal to professional was instantaneous, their previous discussion pushed to the side with twin _cracks_ of apparition. The lights flicked on automatically as they apparated directly into the unwarded office, giving them a perfect view of the struggling bundle on the floor below the air vent.

“I guess this means I owe my godfather a butterbeer,” Harry said. “Do you want the honors, or me?”

Tom glanced at him. “I’ll cancel the trap, you force them to change, and I’ll cast _incarcerous_.”

When the illusory fabric that trapped it vanished, the struggling form revealed itself to be a rat, which promptly made a run for it. Harry was faster though, and a moment later, they were staring at a hunched, sniveling, quite frankly rodent-like man. True to his word, Tom wasted no time in securing the man with conjured ropes. Looking at him, Harry wanted to curse. Had he pissed off any deities lately? He couldn’t think of another explanation for the way his night was going.

“Peter,” he greeted eventually, glaring down at the man.

“Harry,” Pettigrew squeaked. “Wonderful boy, lovely boy, you’ve grown so much since I last saw you. You’re the spitting image of James you k-”

“Who sent you here, Peter?” Harry cut him off.

“This is a mistake,” he claimed, looking around desperately, “all a mistake! I wasn’t-”

“Look at me, Peter,” Harry ordered sharply. When he had the man’s attention, he said, “You know I have every reason to throw you under the bus for this. I’m having a really bad night. Nothing would make me happier.” The man quavered where he sat, and Harry began again, more cajoling this time. “But I’m not going to do that, am I? Because you’re going to tell me who sent you, and then I’m going to make sure you get a lighter sentence.”

Pettigrew remained silent, his eyes darting between Harry and Tom.

Alright. He’d do this the hard way. “What’s the penalty for being an unregistered animagus these days?” he asked rhetorically. He clicked his tongue in thought. “I think it was two to five years in Azkaban, last I heard. Tom, do you know how long it takes for the average wizard to go insane in Azkaban?”

The man didn’t disappoint. “Two and a half years,” he supplied, arms folded over his chest.

Harry whistled lowly. “Bad odds. That’s not even including the charges you’d get for sneaking into the Minister’s office. And let’s be honest with each other, Peter; you’re not the strongest-willed wizard out there. It’s not looking good for you here.”

“I doubt your employers would expend much effort to save you, either,” Tom added.

Harry nodded. “Good point. They don’t care what happens to you. I do though, Peter. I’ll be happy to push for a lighter sentence. I just need you to tell me what you know.”

As expected, Pettigrew broke quickly. “It was Black!” he confessed. “Cygnus Black and his cronies. They want to sabotage Tuft, they wanted me to find her plans for them, but they threatened me, Harry, they would have killed m-”

Tom hit him with a silencing charm.

“I couldn’t think with all that noise,” he defended when Harry looked at him.

Harry rolled his eyes, but let it slide. “A confession like that is good, but there’s no guarantee it’ll be good enough to convict purebloods like Black,” he told him.

Tom hummed in thought, staring intently at Pettigrew, who shook under his gaze. “Thank you for your cooperation. Peter, was it?”

Pettigrew nodded mutely, relaxing marginally.

“Well Peter,” he said. “I know we’re newly acquainted, but I have to say I’m disappointed in you. You strike me as a man who is very invested in his own skin.” He stalked forward until Pettigrew had to crane his neck up to keep sight of him. “So I’m curious as to why you still think it’s wise to hide something from us.”

Pettigrew shook his head vigorously, his eyes pleading.

“Oh, I know,” Tom replied, now soft and sympathetic. “This is all very intense, isn’t it? I just need you to realize that whatever Black said he would do to you, it _pales_ in comparison to what will happen if you don’t tell us everything. But we don’t want things to come to that. So I’m going to release the silencing spell, and then you will get to decide how things proceed from here.”

“You don’t know what they’ll do to me,” Pettigrew insisted once he could speak again. “The things they said, the things they’ve _done_. I’ve told you too much already.”

It was Harry’s turn to jump in. “You _owe_ me, Peter. You’re the one he got their address from.” By the desperate look he received, there was no need to clarify that they were no longer talking about Cygnus Black.

“I was acquitted for that! Snape legilimized me, there was nothing I could have done to protect them, I-!”

“You could have warned them!” Harry roared. “You could have warned them, but instead you ran. Now, you can tell me what else you know, or you can go to Azkaban knowing you’re the same coward you were twenty years ago.”

Pettigrew squeezed his eyes tightly shut, and Harry knew he’d gotten him. “…They’re coming here. Tonight. They didn’t trust me to search the room again myself, so they told me to go in while the wards are down and take down the temporary protections from the inside. They’ll be here in twenty minutes.”

Harry glanced at Tom, who nodded. “Thank you, Peter, I think that’s all we need from you. We’ll take it from here.” And with that, he took a spare emergency portkey from his pocket and sent Pettigrew away to a holding cell upstairs.

“I take it we’re on the same page that we should lie in wait here and catch Black in the act?” Tom asked.

Harry shrugged. “That was my plan, yeah.”

Harry made a brief trip to his flat to collect his invisibility cloak, and then the pair went to work on dismantling all of the alarms and protections they had placed around the office.

“You know, having now been on both sides of your interrogations,” Tom said conversationally, “I have to admit I’m impressed. You have a talent for it.”

Harry rolled his eyes. “Thanks. That means a lot, coming from the guy who threatened to torture the suspect.”

Tom put on an appropriately scandalized expression. “I think you’ll find, if we review the memory later, that I was nothing but polite.” His eyes, however, were quietly pleased.

This elicited a snort from Harry. “Sure. A polite conversation in which you implied you would skin him alive, among other things.”

“Someone being ‘invested in their own skin’ is a perfectly normal phrase.”

“Not when you use it.”

The adrenaline of finally getting to the bottom of their case, followed by the rush to dismantle the spells, went a long way towards distracting Harry from the other events of the evening, and they worked in comfortable silence for several minutes.

Unfortunately for him, once they were settled under the invisibility cloak, with their thighs touching as they huddled against the wall, the underlying tension gradually crept back in. Harry wasn’t suited to sitting still even in the best of circumstances, and he found himself fidgeting after just a few minutes.

“So,” he said eventually, “I get the other stuff. But what was with the night shifts?”

Tom looked at him from the corner of his eye, exasperated either by the question or Harry’s inability to sit quietly. Possibly both. “That was more for my sake,” he answered finally. “When the frustrations of being a political underling made me wish I could just use more… extreme measures to reform our world, seeing you was a reminder of why I chose to do things this way.”

“Are you really trying to convince me you’ve never used any underhanded tactics to get to where you are?” Harry asked wryly.

Tom almost looked offended. “Merlin, no. I may not be a dark lord, but I’m not Hermione bloody Granger either.”

Harry snorted.

“As long as we’re getting answers for longstanding questions,” Tom said, “you hated me long before sixth year. I never quite understood why.”

Harry sat unspeaking for a moment, just staring at the wall in front of him. “I didn’t- I didn’t always hate you. We rode the Express together in first year, remember? I was excited to meet another kid who was just as new to all this as I was. But then we got sorted into different houses, and everyone around me was telling me about slimy Slytherins and house rivalries, and I wasn’t sure what to think. So I went to talk to you in the library.”

Tom was quiet. “…I don’t remember,” he murmured.

“You wouldn’t,” Harry told him, shaking his head. “It wasn’t really even a conversation, we just greeted each other and I kept walking. In hindsight, I know you were probably just acting untouchable so you wouldn’t get eaten alive by your housemates, but at the time, all I knew was that I looked at you and suddenly it felt like you were playing pretend. Like, if I had sat with you, you would have put on a polite mask and smiled and nodded at me, and it would have all been a lie.” Harry took a deep breath. “And that was it. Slytherins were all slimy gits, and you were the perfect little Slytherin, and for some reason, no one but me could tell how fake it was. That’s when I started to hate you.

“For that, Tom, I really am sorry. You probably could have used a friend.”

Tom stared at him, eyes wide. It might have been the most honest expression Harry had ever received from the man, but he couldn’t for the life of him identify the emotions he saw. Maybe Tom himself didn’t know.

It was, course, that moment when the door to the office was kicked open.

The first person to enter the room was a man Harry recognized as Marcellus Crabbe. He was followed by Cygnus Black, strolling in like he owned the place, with Gideon Goyle trailing in behind them both. The presence of Crabbe and Goyle implied that Abraxas Malfoy was also involved somehow, Harry noted, not that there would be any way to prove it in court.

Cygnus scanned the room, his eyes skimming right past where Harry and Tom lay hidden, and sneered. “Looks like the rat took his chance to flee.” When Crabbe and Goyle merely looked at him blankly, he snapped, “Well, start looking! The sooner we find her plans, the better. We’ll deal with him later.”

Under the cloak, Harry and Tom exchanged a look.

Cygnus and Crabbe must have caught a glimpse of them as they stood, for only Goyle was unprepared for the stunner that was sent his way. The dull thud of his body hitting the floor was the only sound for a moment as the remaining four sized each other up.

“When I said we should talk again sometime, I didn’t mean so soon,” Harry told Cygnus, aiming his wand at him and trusting that Tom had Crabbe.

“Potter,” Cygnus hissed. “Of course that dirtblooded bitch has you keeping an eye on things.”

“Drop your wand, Cygnus,” Harry ordered. “You can make this easier on yourself if you just give up.”

Crabbe shifted uncertainly, but Cygnus ignored him. “And you’ve brought Riddle as well. Quite the pair, you two. Bonding over your filthy blood and whore mothers, no doubt.” Harry’s hand tightened around his wand. “But I suppose you can’t help it – like calls to like.”

Harry was barely aware of what spell left his lips, but Cygnus swore and only just managed to cast a shield in time. It held, but the spell left spiderweb cracks in the defense. Another hit or two and it would shatter.

“Crabbe! Burn it all!” Cygnus commanded. “If we can’t find that halfblood bitch’s plans, we’ll just have to reduce them to ash with everything else.”

Crabbe grunted an affirmative, and the telltale crackle of flames began to fill the office a moment later. Tom swore as he suddenly had to divide his attention between managing the fire and keeping Crabbe at bay. Busy trading curses with Cygnus, Harry had to trust that Tom had his side of the fight handled.

The room lit with spellfire as the duels began in earnest. Harry only got the chance to take stock of the room again after several minutes, as he dodged a particularly nasty hex. The flames were almost completely out at that point, and Tom seemed to be regaining the upper hand now that he could give the fight his full attention. They were winning.

Harry saw it almost in slow motion.

Tom finally dispatched Marcellus Crabbe with a well-aimed stunner and started to turn towards Harry. Cygnus caught wind of Harry’s distraction, and a violet streak of spellfire shot past Harry’s shoulder. Tom’s wand whipped through the first motion for a shield charm, but he was too late.

Harry didn’t recognize the curse – he could only watch in horror as blood arched into the air and Tom fell like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

Distantly, Harry thought some of the blood must have gotten in his eyes. That was the only explanation he could think of for the red that filled his vision as he turned to face Cygnus, whose wand dipped down a bit as though even he was surprised the spell had hit.

It was funny how some habits never faded, even after a decade of living in the magical world. How the mind could go blank and the body would move without conscious thought, operating purely on instinct.

Let it never be said that Harry was one to resist his instincts.

The next thing he knew, his forearm was at Cygnus’ throat, pressing him against the wall. It was an easy enough position to get out of, he knew from his own experiences with Harry Hunting; it left the target’s arms free for retaliation. Not that a pureblood would ever think of that.

“You-” Cygnus bit out, but cut off with a choked gasp as Harry pressed tighter. The man’s wand slipped through his fingers, falling to the floor with a clatter.

Harry lifted his foot and brought it down with a decisive _snap_ , and neither of them needed to look down to know there was no way the wand could be repaired, after that. He didn’t know what he looked like in that moment, wouldn’t have cared even if he did, but something on his face made the man pale dramatically.

“Give me a reason, Cygnus,” he demanded, pressing all the harder against his throat. “Give me one reason why the world isn’t better off without you.”

But the man didn’t have the breath to speak, could only manage tiny, gasping intakes of air while his eyes were locked on Harry’s in terror. It looked like it hurt. Harry kind of hoped it did.

“Harry,” a voice rasped.

Harry didn’t turn, his instincts screaming not to take his eyes off his captive.

There was a sound of rustling fabric. Of a shoe making contact with the floor. A step. Another step.

A hand landed on his shoulder. “Harry, stop.”

Cygnus’ eyes fell shut, his body going limp. Harry watched it intently. “Why should I?” he asked.

Tom’s grip on his shoulder tightened. “Because this isn’t you.”

Harry laughed. “That’s a bit rich, coming from you. I thought we were the same.”

“I was wrong,” Tom said, and Harry finally heard the tightness in his voice. How was this man even upright? Surely the blood loss alone was… “You’re a better man than me. You’ll regret this later.”

Finally, Harry turned his head to look at him. Tom was pale, and the hand that wasn’t on Harry’s shoulder was pressed tightly against the blood-soaked front of his robes. He seemed unsteady, like his grip on Harry was the only thing holding him up, but his eyes were fixed intently on Harry’s.

Harry’s arm gradually relaxed. He lowered it to his side, and Cygnus collapsed to the ground, completely forgotten.

“Oh thank Merlin,” Tom breathed. He began to teeter dangerously, and Harry only barely turned in time to catch him before he fell. “Call for reinforcements,” Tom ordered through grit teeth once Harry had managed to lower him to the floor. “Someone you can trust. And,” he added with a wince, “I suppose a healer wouldn’t be amiss, either.”

His eyes slipped shut, and that was the scene Captain Peterson found when he arrived several minutes later.

* * *

Harry walked into the room, laden down with flowers. He couldn’t see very well through the mass of leaves and petals, but he did his best and was rewarded when he found a bedside table to set them down on.

“For me?” a dry voice asked. “You shouldn’t have.”

“Shut it, Riddle,” he replied cheerfully. “These are from Wilhelmina and other assorted well-wishers.” He tossed a chocolate bar onto the bed. “That’s from me. I know how bad hospital food is.”

In his hospital gown, with his hair in disarray, Tom looked as human as Harry had ever seen him. It almost made him reconsider what he was about to do.

Almost.

Tom picked up the chocolate, eyeing it with distrust. “You seem… pleased,” he said carefully.

“Wilhelmina was ecstatic to get to jail several of her political opponents,” he informed him. “She offered me a job as her personal guard.”

There was a fraction of a delay before Tom’s eyes widened in pleasant surprise. “That’s-”

“I turned her down,” Harry interrupted, still smiling like the cat who got the cream.

Tom faltered. In quick succession, he looked annoyed, then calculating, before finally settling on reluctant resignation. He gave Harry a wry smile. “I suppose it was too much to hope you’d go along with that plan.”

“You’re damn right, you bloody sociopath. _Really_ , Tom? _That’s_ why you stuck us in the lift together? You put all this shit into motion just so we could work together?”

“Not,” Tom coughed, “not _just_ so we could work together. Wilhelmina will have an advantage in the Wizengamot after this, since a good portion of her opposition will be busy licking their wounds for the foreseeable future.”

“And,” Harry pressed with a pointed look.

Tom rolled his eyes. “ _And_ the recognition and good press you’ll receive for apprehending them will make it harder for you to slink off into the shadows after this. If you had taken Wilhelmina’s _job offer_ ,” he stressed with a pointed look, “we would have continued to be in close contact after the case, as well.”

“ _Sociopath_ ,” Harry stressed right back. “I see enough of your smug face at home, seeing as we’re apparently neighbors now. No way I want to spend all my work days with you as well.”

“I… see,” Tom said, his expression shuttering closed.

Harry let him hang for another moment before taking pity on him. “Which is why I asked Wilhelmina to hire me on as a consultant when she starts implementing her big plans, instead.”

For once, Tom seemed to be struck speechless.

“I decided being an auror isn’t for me,” Harry continued. “I don’t like the person it turns me into sometimes.” He grimaced. “Just. Promise me there are no more plots or schemes in the works?”

Tom quickly found his footing, pretending he’d never lost it in the first place. “I promise I have no more pending machinations that involve you.”

“That’s a lie,” Harry said with an exasperated eyeroll.

“Well, maybe just one more for the moment,” he quipped. He caught Harry’s hand in his, and the expression he aimed at him was so… _Tom_ that it made the breath catch in Harry’s throat. “Do you want to have dinner with me this weekend?”

Harry smiled.

“Yeah, I think I’d like that.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: In this chapter, Harry uses excessive force (choking) in his capacity as an auror, against a culprit who almost dies as a result. As far as we can tell, Harry receives no punishment for his actions. I believe that this scene differs from the real-world experiences of marginalized (primarily Black) people in that the person in question is normally in a position of socio/economic/political power over Harry, but this is a sensitive topic and I wanted to give people the ability to make an informed decision for themselves.
> 
> That's all, folks! Thank you so much for reading. If you had half as much fun reading Being Cassandra as I had writing it, then I have succeeded here ^_^ Thank you for being so lovely and supportive of this fic! Leave a kudos/comment, I'd love to hear your thoughts <3


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